


twenty-two love stories

by pendules



Series: twenty-two love stories [1]
Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-19
Updated: 2011-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-15 19:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Come and see me. Tell me your stupid stories."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	twenty-two love stories

**Author's Note:**

> **_soundtrack_**  
> [ _One Day, Robots Will Cry_](http://www.box.net/shared/8nkxt9p7ga) \- Cobra Starship [[lyrics](http://www.metrolyrics.com/one-day-robots-will-cry-lyrics-cobra-starship.html)]  
> [ _Closer_](http://www.box.net/shared/seh7nuhdu4) \- Kings Of Leon [[lyrics](http://www.metrolyrics.com/closer-lyrics-kings-of-leon.html)]  
> [ _Everything We Had_](http://www.box.net/shared/p1ocdn6tbj) \- The Academy Is... [[lyrics](http://www.metrolyrics.com/everything-we-had-lyrics-the-academy-is.html)]

1.

 

The first time Ricky sees Andriy Shevchenko he decides he's one of those men who's been trying for decades to be a gentleman but who still hasn't gotten it quite right.

But he considers it later and thinks that maybe that's just something he alone can see.

 

Sheva says he dreams in fairytales. All dreams are fairytales you tell yourself. Nightmares are.

Sheva dreams about heaven, sometimes.

 

There's this time he becomes concerned about anatomy. He wonders if knuckles are parts of fingers or parts of hands. That's an interesting thing about a joint. He wonders how the same part of your body you use to beat someone to a pulp can be used to touch a child, a lover. He wonders if it was intended this way, to make it easy, to make that transition easier. (Or to make it easier to hide.)

There's this time, years after, that Jordan grabs his finger for the first time. He decides he's never, ever going to be who he used to be.

 

And maybe, then, he lost some of that passion. Maybe then he became colder. But somehow, he was still the child he'd always been.

 

Sheva works hard to trade fighting for football, for family, for love that wasn't dangerous.

But in the end, really, Sheva replaces fighting with Kakà. (And it's maybe not a trade after all.) He starts to wonder if the only love he's allowed to have is dangerous.

 

Normally, Sheva would be terrified of someone like him. He's good, too good, too young, too fucking _beautiful_ , and maybe, maybe, he's everything Sheva has ever pretended to be.

Normally, Sheva would hate him. Maybe he does. Normally, Sheva would run from him, from this. (He won't. Not yet. He'll wait.)

Sheva wants to feel something real again, wants to feel who he really is, who he was, his true nature.

 

This is how they fall in love: like one of Sheva's stories. He'll think he caused it to be so, but he didn't. He'll think it's his fault, but it wasn't. He'll think Kakà is everything he needs not in his life but for one moment that can taint him and cleanse him at the same time.

He's wrong.

 

Sheva fucks him with the lights on, and it's the first time he does that.

Kakà cries, the night after, with the lights off.

He looks haunted, but he's there, he's right there. Sheva takes his wrists in his hands, maybe gentler than he intended, tells him, "You didn't choose this. You didn't do anything wrong."

Sheva is, maybe, blind to many things when it comes to Kakà.

Sheva's been trying to undo himself for thirty years. Kakà doesn't recognise who he's become overnight.

 

Kakà starts loving the way Sheva doesn't lie to him, the way he thinks he doesn't deserve to love him but won't give it up either. He starts loving the way Sheva knows he'll forgive him, knows he'll always say what he expects him to (because he is nothing more or less than he is expected to be). (He'll hate this later.)

 

"It was supposed to mean nothing," Sheva admits, because he has to. He has to give him one moment, one chance, to react like he would if it _did_ mean nothing. "Something shameful and terrible that no one would see. One thing they wouldn't see."

"It's not the most important thing. What's there for people to see." Kakà is, maybe, imagining many more conversations like this in the future. Kakà is, maybe, imagining loving this man forever.

"No, but who you are is the most important thing." _You wouldn't love me if you saw who I was, who I could be (who I am)._

He doesn't know that Ricky's been seeing it from the beginning.

 

Kakà, Kakà wants to tell him sometimes, _Your name is not destruction. And I'm not scared of you._

With Sheva, he's learning that you can be a child and not be young. Not really. When you're young, you do things without thinking, but not to destroy things. Because you don't know any better, and not because you know too well.

Sheva never really grew up, not really. He became older, became colder, but still wants to live in some kind of make-believe world where you don't have to think too much about anything.

Sheva wants to be the child he really is. Sheva envies Kakà's real, actual youth.

 

Sheva tells him, "You're too beautiful for this world."

Tells him, "You should've been a poet. A pianist. Something."

"I'm horrible with words. And not graceful enough to be a musician."

"Grace? You're thinking of dancing."

Kakà all but grimaces openly at that. "I'm horrible at that too. You know that."

"You don't need grace to dance. Just the right partner."

"See, _you_ should have been the poet."

 

Kakà, perhaps, falls in love with the fighter, not the poet.

 

He calls him after, though, says, "Come and see me. Tell me your stupid stories."

And Sheva does, and does tell him one. One of his own.

He doesn't like Kakà's stories. They're too stark, too painful. He's never been able to disguise himself, and that's the problem.

 

 

2.

 

There's this time he's lying on his back, fully clothed, shoes still on, and Ricky's looking at him or maybe he's not.

This time, he says, "I love you _too_ much."

And they both know what this means. In a world where it's possibly to have something so powerful, so senseless and chaotic, it's equally likely to have powerful things opposite in nature: heartbreak, destruction, the world shattering along fault lines drawn there long before.

 

 _I'm a fighter, Ricky. Maybe this was all just a battle to be won._

 _And did you? Did you win?_

 

Sheva's been running from fighting, but somehow, he loses for the first time.

Sheva doesn't ever dream about fighting.

 

He wonders how he lost. Maybe because Kakà fell right back in love with him (it wasn't dangerous anymore), or maybe it's because Kakà fell first, akin to throwing that first decisive punch, the one that knocks you down without you expecting it to be that powerful. Maybe it wasn't part of the plan. None of it. It wasn't what it was supposed to be. It wasn't a reminder, compensation, wasn't him getting a fix, after so, so long, just one quick one. It wasn't quick. It's messy. It's a lifetime of mistakes raining down on him. (This isn't; this isn't one.)

 

Sheva tells him over drinks. Ricky stops then, because anything he puts in his mouth just then will be the most bitter thing he's ever tasted. Including his words.

The night he leaves, Ricky gets drunk, stops at the side of the road to throw up. Or because he can't see clearly anymore. He wonders what Sheva would say if he knew he almost kills himself because of him. He wants to keep wondering though. It's not so bad, this pain.

Without it, love wouldn't exist.

 

The facts are these: Kakà cries the first time Sheva fucks him and the (first) time he leaves him.

 

When he's gone, Kakà doesn't sleep for two weeks. (He's afraid, probably. He's scared of what's there to be dreamt of. Maybe he's been dreaming in Sheva's fairytales since that first night.)

His eyes burn now, all the time, whether they're open or closed, and he doesn't know what else to do. He calls him, like it's the same, tells him, "Just. Talk. Please."

And he does. He doesn't hear any of it whether he's awake, asleep or somewhere in between the two. He doesn't know when Sheva hangs up.

He won't remember in the morning, and he doesn't ever call again like that.

Sheva's in a new house, in a new city, in a new fucking _country_ , and he's still never known insomnia.

 

Sheva plays golf in England, becomes a bit obsessed with it, really. Remembers someone saying, once, that football's a gentleman's game played by hooligans.

He resents this. And he hates that he resents it. He hates that he's never become who he wanted to be, that he doesn't know how to be happy. But most of all, he hates that he left who he was behind.

 

Sheva can't ever be a poet, a gentleman, because he knows how to act too well. He's never been able to rein this desire in: to do something, go somewhere, away from here, buy something, fuck somebody, _be_ somebody.

Sheva is, maybe, afraid to stay still. That is, always, what makes you vulnerable.

 

Sheva has these twenty-two dreams of Kakà catalogued and filed away in his brain. He pulls them out, sometimes, randomly, or not. Sometimes, he riffles through them like a pack of cards, like he's forgotten something; sometimes, they come all at once.

He doesn't ever think about the real memories.

Sheva doesn't lose touch with reality. His problem is that he cares too much about it.

 

For two months after, Kakà figures out what it's like to live in a wasteland.

Sheva leaves and takes the warmth with him. Sheva leaves and takes the warmth when he never liked it that much to begin with.

The floor is crackling cold, maybe ready to fracture and open up a chasm, and Ricky starts understanding the world Sheva lives in.

This was, maybe, the real point of this.

 

When he does, does understand, he half-expects him to know that, to come back. But he doesn't, doesn't release his grip on Kakà's soul for a long, long time. Your life, your heart, your soul, none of them belongs to you, but he's pretty sure they were never meant to be Andriy Shevchenko's either.

Sheva, maybe, doesn't know what to do with them. For the first time, he's unsure how to start acting. He doesn't know what to do with them, but he can't bear to give them back. Not now. Not yet.

He's better, perhaps, with trophies.

 

Kakà wins a trophy of his own and starts retrieving himself. Some parts will always be gone though, and he knows.

 _He took my heart. He never gave it back._

 

 

INTERLUDE

 

He likes the grittier ones. Not that the typical fairytales don't have substance. They all do. The only reason stories are clichéd is because they're meant to reflect real life, and life has been clichéd for a long, long time.

No matter how much you try to use art as an escape, it comes back to the same thing. Every word, every spectacular dream...well, once it's yours, it has _you_ written all over it.

Sheva dreams about explosions in the sky.

 

He dreams about alien lifeforms communicating like this, dreams about a place where he can only hear voices plotting against an enemy but can see no one, dreams about two boys running forever along rolling hills and countryside.

This is the one Sheva tells him.

 _He doesn't age, so he doesn't know how long he's trapped in this forest. And it's the kind of place you would love if you weren't there alone. But he is alone. It's cold, though; he was born in the cold. And he doesn't know how to get used to it. And he doesn't know if he could get used to anything else at the same time. He's stranded. But it'd be alright, it would, if there was someone else stranded with him._

 _This someone else is spawned by the sun. He can't bear the cold, but he does. He does it for reasons he won't know. The cold one, he looks up one day and there's just this bright light. It burns his eyes, and it dims a little. And it comes closer._

 _Somehow, they end up stranded together. And the forest he's lived in for an age and a half becomes home, finally. But it's not enough._

 _They learn to escape. And they do: to mountains, and fields, and green._

 _Somehow, though, the light dims more and more everyday. And there's only the moon in the sky. The sun retreats further and further. Or they're running from it._

 _The light doesn't ever go out completely, but after a while, they're not sure if they're alive at all._

 

Maybe this is the only time you can really be yourself: when you're sleeping.

Sometimes, Sheva wants to sleep for days.

 

 

3.

 

Love, it's easy to do. It's easy to give your heart away. This is why there are so many shattered ones in the world.

Sheva knows how to love. But he never gives up his heart either. And love's not enough sometimes. He knows this. But he doesn't have anything else.

Kakà never expected anything more, not really. Kakà, maybe, still got his heart broken. He gave it away too easily. He gave it away when he knew Sheva could never be trusted with it.

 

Sheva's at his door now.

He's saying, "I couldn't figure out how the story went anymore."

And, "I don't want _you_ to be a story anymore."

"Does life really change you, Sheva?" he asks, and his voice is sad.

"No. And you can't change yourself."

"You changed me, Sheva. I used to wish I could do the same for you. I thought you'd be happy then."

"Humanity, we've been chasing something for two thousand years. Maybe we're tired now. I'm tired, Ricky."

"Me too." _I'm done trying. I hope you know that._

 

The thing is, before ( _before_ ), they used to have these phonecalls, these conversations. The real kind. The kind that makes you absolutely sure that it's not just a matter of distraction, seduction, of being caught up in a moment, in every moment. In being hypnotised by weary, worn-out eyes (ones that have seen too much) and accents and touches that should never, never be that soft. The real kind of conversation. The kind that always turns into a story somewhere along the way.

After ( _after_ ), they have only one of these, the first. Then, they speak once every week, and Sheva keep his dreams to himself. Kakà keeps his too-clear, too-bright eyes to himself. They have selfish conversations across water and boundaries.

Kakà's never been good at dividing time periods, assessing the moments where the very fabric of time splits into a 'before' and 'after.' But maybe Sheva was a better teacher than Kakà ever gave him credit for; maybe he prepared him for something, for it, for _this_.

(Maybe, maybe, Ricky still changed Sheva after all, too. Maybe he helped him turn into that gentleman (the one he used to inject into his stories sometimes (the one that grew from a lost boy), the one they watched in old films on Sunday afternoons). Maybe he helped him come back. Not to say sorry, but to finally know what it was like to take one look back, to press rewind, to try to put divided time back together and maybe even let the pieces overlap.)

Kakà's never been good at dividing time periods, but maybe Sheva taught him too well. This is an 'after' after that 'after,' and it won't ever be the same as anything before it.

 

It's not the same, never will be the same, but Sheva calls him one morning, the clock says 5:15, colon blinking like it's waiting for a decision, and he says, "I want to feel like a kid again."

They eat cereal and watch cartoons, and Kakà whispers into his neck, "Tell me a story."

He doesn't. He doesn't, and he kisses him instead, soft and warm, like everything he took away, like he never left.

They take a walk, hands brushing accidentally on purpose.

 

It's not the same, but Sheva's never been able to tell him anything but the truth.

"I didn't win. I lost. I lost, and it was alright. Maybe."

Kakà, he says, "I don't think it's in your nature to lose."

Sheva didn't lose _him_ (he almost did, almost, for a second there). That could be all that matters.

 

(Kakà tells him one thing, only one, about the night after he leaves. He says, _I thought I didn't recognise myself when I was with you, that I was someone I'd never known, never met. But it's when you weren't here that I didn't know who I was. I only knew who you were._

 _You still hurt me. Maybe you're sorry about that. Maybe you hurt yourself too._ )

 

"You had to go away for me to understand you. That's not right, is it?"

Maybe, maybe, they've always been better at loving each other from afar. It's easier that way.

"It's not wrong either. It's just...us."

Sheva wants to ask him sometimes if he hates him as much as he loves him. Ricky's maybe waiting for that too, but he won't, he won't ever.

 

Kakà never, ever asks him to promise he won't go anywhere again. Sheva won't ever do this either.

This is why he left in the first place. He doesn't make promises he can't keep, and he doesn't know how to keep most promises.

 

Sheva promises him he'll love him forever. That's all.

 

 

4.

 

This and every story, it's a path that leads to somewhere unknown. It's about keeping moving, keeping the momentum, because it's always easier to lose your balance when you stop.

 

Sheva talks about dying like he's done it already. Maybe he has, in a dream. Maybe his fairytales are his version of staying still. No matter where you are, you can have the same dream. Sheva needs to wander the world, live in a different place every day, and dream about an entirely different one every night. Or this is only who he used to be, who he would have been.

This Sheva chose to love some things more than others. This Sheva dreams of the same place every night. Every story in his entire live will lead towards here or back to here.

"I could have been happy. Here. That's why I had to go."

"You didn't leave me. You couldn't have, because you were never mine."

Ricky's heart would break then if Sheva wasn't holding onto it so tightly.

 

Everything he's been trying: the reinvention, the disguises, the make-believe, all of it would have worked, eventually. It would have worked if Ricky had never loved him.

He's not trying anymore. It's over, that, all over. It didn't work. It won't, and Sheva's everything he's always been. The fighter.

Sheva leaves, then, again, for the same reason. This is too safe. Maybe not real enough. Maybe none of it is ever real enough – the world is, possibly, just a mindless, indulgent children's tale – but he has to try anyway. Not try to be happy, but try to be somebody.

 

It's all the same, really: football and dancing, poetry and fighting. Trying to hide and being unmasked at the same time. Anything you create, _anyone_ you create is always more of a giveaway than a cloak.

 

This time, he doesn't leave a bar alone at three in the morning. This time, it's Sheva who's there, right there, and Kakà's more grateful for that than anything.

(Sheva does, does admit, afterwards, how scared he was. For a minute or two. For more. The scariest days of his life. Waiting. Just waiting. Kakà doesn't say anything – he doesn't like to talk about this – and just brings Sheva's hand to his mouth, presses a kiss to the space where a ring sits on the other one. It was worth it, Sheva says, conviction in his voice. But he regrets more than Kakà will ever know. He tells him this too.)

This time, Sheva looks scared but he isn't half as scared as before. This time, Kakà doesn't cry but is twice as crushed.

(It really isn't about changing. No. It's about clearing up the things that obscure your view, the things that obscure _yourself_ , the things you put there.)

Sheva says, "I'm supposed to say now, 'If it was another life, it would have worked out.'"

"No, no. In another life, you'd still be you."

"That's not right, is it?"

"Maybe not. But I wouldn't change it."

"I hope I know you in every life."

"Don't worry," Kakà says, smiling sadly, "you do."

 

Ricky dances with Caroline sometime after, holds on to her like he's falling.

Sheva takes Christian's hand, spins him around and around. When he's asleep, he'll rub gentle circles into his hair and tell him a story about two boys in love, a story that ends in heartbreak. That's how every love story ends. If they ever really do.

 

He allows himself to remember one thing:

"They tell you to want it all: cars, mansions, money, women. But when you do, you're a traitor. How does that work?"

"You don't have to care. You just have to be happy."

"No. No. Maybe you can, Ricky. I can't."

He thinks, _I love you more than many things but still less than some things._

He thinks, _You'll be everywhere I go, everything I do. You'll be watching me long after you start regretting, long after you forget how to regret._

He thinks, _I've known you in every life I've lived. In every dream. And I will in every one after this._

Dying's not like sleeping. Maybe we never die at all. Maybe we can go to sleep and wake up in another time, in another place, where nothing terrible and nothing great ever happens. Maybe that's the perfect world. Maybe that's what home feels like.

 

Sheva wakes up with bloody knuckles, but it was just a dream.


End file.
